The broadcasters pointed to “grave and rising threats to the right to gather information and communicate it across national borders” including detentions, arrests, expulsions, kidnaps and deaths of their own journalists.

The statement said countries in Eurasia, Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America in particular have restricted or blocked coverage of events of “significant public interest” and that more recently some governments, through the licensing and regulatory process, had tried to restrict or forbid local rebroadcasts the five broadcasters’ programmes on radio and television. The statement also expressed concern at the growing number of states that had deliberately interfered with broadcast signals or blocked or censored the internet.